Supply and demand

I’m pleased to say that this past week seems to have been two steps forward and only one step back, with the conclusion of one bureaucratic undertaking, an advancement with another and the resurfacing (in more ways than one) of a recurring problem at La Casa dei Due Baffi.

We returned to the Post Office on Tuesday, the day recommended by Paolo to put the business of the post box to bed, and he proved as good as his word. In fact, when we entered shortly after opening time, he beckoned us over to the banking counter, thus preempting our need to queue – or maybe preempting causing a queue while he dealt with us. Not that this worked, for a man trying to send something back to Amazon caused Paolo’s assistant a bit of a challenge. When we left, half a dozen people were waiting patiently for them to agree just how many items he could put in his cardboard box.

Anyway, we had no such problem with Paolo. He was well versed in what he had to do, and you can’t really blame him for the business taking thirty minutes. Well, maybe a little, as he did have to redo one of my forms when he got my name wrong, chuntering something about why we had to have such long names; having both a first and a middle name seemed like carelessness to him. After the obligatory multiple signatures, all was done and dusted before 9am, so feeling brave we tentatively presented him with the photocopy of the form we required to get our medical card. He seemed a little nonplussed at first but after a bit of explanation from Stephen he presented us with copies of the relevant document for us to take away and complete. So much for our very faint hope that he might be able to do it for us.

However, we did find a white knight to come to our rescue. I took a copy of the form to my lesson with Giordano that afternoon, as Stephen wanted clarification on a couple of points. When I asked him about them, he immediately logged onto his computer, filled in two blank documents with our details (he still had mine from when he acted for us in buying the house) and printed them off. Now all we need to do is go back to the Post Office, pay, get the forms stamped and return to the hospital in Fermo with them. Should be a doddle…

Before all that, though, when we left the post office we checked our newly renewed box and what did we find? Yes, another Christmas card setting another new record: forty-nine days. So remember, next time they tell you to post early for Christmas, I’d go for about the middle of August.

Wednesday was February 1st, which despite being a new month saw the reappearance of an old problem. I thought whilst I was doing the breakfast pots that the water seemed to be running a little slow but put it down to Stephen having started the washing machine downstairs. Not so, as a few minutes later Luigi pulled up outside LCDDB in the brothers’ white transit van. He hailed Stephen, telling him that yet again the infamous water pipe had sprung a leak and that they had had to turn off our supply. Stephen took a quick run up the hill (in the car, that is; he’s not decided to start fell running) to examine the latest damage and then called our old friend Loris. He was busy that morning (unsurprisingly) but promised to come in the afternoon.

He was as good as his word and appeared shortly after lunch with his faithful mini digger and once more dug up part of Mario and Luigi’s field, revealing that indeed the pipe had decided to come apart. This time it was decided that a bona fide plumber was needed to fix it good and proper. Consequently, Stephen called up Andrea, who had come to our aid last year, if you recall, when Stephen helpfully nailed skirting board to the central heating pipe that runs through our bedroom wall. He let Loris do the talking, though, what with him being more familiar with the Italian vocabulary related to excavation. Andrea said either he or his brother, Simone, would be the next morning.

In the event, they both arrived bright and early on Thursday and Stephen took them up to inspect the damage – or rather, not, as the hole had flooded overnight thus making an assessment a bit of a challenge. Notwithstanding, Andrea decided that to ensure this was the last time we would be faced with this predicament, he needed to weld a joint between the two recalcitrant pipes and install an additional meter in the junction box by Mario and Luigi’s house. The problem, as he saw it, is that the water supply is fine when it leaves MSP but gradually gathers more pressure as it comes down to the junction where it splits into three: for Mario, for Luigi and for us. It then builds up a head of steam covering the further 500m to LCDDB and, as we are at the end of the line, there’s no other outlet to lessen the force. This is especially true overnight when we’re not running any water, hence the problem surfacing first thing in the morning. The additional meter would moderate the flow as the water company’s meter only monitors the amount of and not the force of the water.

While Andrea was off sourcing the necessary materials, Simone set to draining the hole. This he did by throwing a bucket attached to a rope into the water then hauling it out and tipping it onto the field, in a manner reminiscent of Tom the Cabin Boy swabbing the decks in Captain Pugwash. He did a fine job of this but when Andrea returned he was still unable to sort the problem as a large amount of sodden field had slid down the hole and covered the pipe. A call to Loris, patron saint of diggers, found him to be miraculously free and he arrived within twenty minutes in his thirty-ton truck with digger on the back. Again he manoeuvred his way on said digger through M & L’s vines to re-excavate the hole.

When the pair of very muddy and sticky pipes, plus the connecting piece, were once more revealed, Simone shimmied down, wearing Stephen’s best Dolce and Gabbana wellingtons (there are such things as standards) to clean the pipes before proceeding to weld the various ends together with what Stephen described as, ‘a big orange electrical machine’. While this was going on, Andrea was attaching the new meter at the junction box. Once this was completed and everything had cooled down, the water was turned on and the hole filled in – and all before lunchtime. We may groan about the speed of bureaucracy in Italy, but when it comes to Loris and Andrea we find it hard to imagine things happening quite so fast in the UK. It may be that they feel very sorry for the unfortunate Englishmen, or that they regard us as a mild irritation that has to be scratched, but whatever it is, we are again very grateful to them.

In fact, Andre and his brother returned in the afternoon, not only to deliver their bill but also to seal off a gas pipe in the downstairs room that we use as a wood store. This had served as a makeshift kitchen when the Chinese renters were running a factory on the ground floor. Stephen had thought for some time that the shaky stop tap and rubber tubing affair left by the former occupiers was not an overly safe contraption to have hanging about, but we could have timed our remedial action a little better. We had phoned the gasman last week about a delivery to fill up our tank in case the weather took a turn for the worse, and he chose to arrive minutes after Andrea and his brother. With the typical Italian disregard for not only health and safety but also life and limb, Simone merrily wandered around with a flaming blow torch only feet away from the gas pipe snaking from the wagon to the tank in the back garden, which the gasman for some reason didn’t seem to consider in any way dangerous. Fortunately, no harm was done and we ended the afternoon with a full tank of gas, a (fingers crossed) steady water supply, a safely sealed pipe and a house still intact.

Flushed with this success (no pun intended) we set about later that afternoon on our latest mission, which is to obtain an Italian driving licence. Stephen had researched this online but had been told by Marco that there was a driving school the other side of Rapagnano where they would see to everything for you, including the medical examination. This is needed not only to get a licence but also, once you pass the age of fifty, you have to take one to renew your licence every five years. When we turned up, clutching a purple folder containing what we hoped would be all the appropriate information, the two ladies behind the counter were are at first a little bemused. They soon rallied, however, and we completed all the relevant documents for stage one of the process in what must be a record time of less than twenty minutes. Now we need to return next Tuesday for the medical, it being the day the doctor is in the house. Stephen asked what time, suggesting 4pm as a possibility. No, they replied, better leave it till 8 for while the doctor is supposed to arrive at 7.30, he’s always late. It’s comforting to know that some things in Italy can be relied on.

Friday morning we woke to the shocking news that supermarkets in the UK were having to ration the sale of iceberg lettuces due to a paucity in supplies, and that courgettes and broccoli were also noticeable by their absence. Apparently bad weather in Spain and Italy had seriously affected production and these items were at a premium. So much so that in some shops customers were being limited to a maximum of three lettuces. Why? Why, unless you were mass catering a 70s retro party and kicking off with a prawn cocktail starter, would you want three lettuces? Fortunately, such considerations were academic when we hit Sigma for the weekend shop, as not only were icebergs one of a variety of salad leaves in abundance, but there was also enough courgettes and broccoli to keep the good burgers of MSP happy. If there is a shortage, it’s good to know that the Italian producers are looking after their own people; after all, why should they prioritise a nation that’s rejected associating with mainland Europe?

Food was also on the agenda when we met up on Friday evening with Computer Luca, Alessio and Oscar for dinner at Antichi Sapori, an agroturismo down a country lane the other side of the dual carriageway into Civitanova. We would have been on time if we hadn’t managed to drive past it in the dark and then have to follow a circuitous one-way system to get back to it. Still, we arrived shortly after 8, a good hour before anybody else thought it an appropriate time to eat, and enjoyed an evening of good company and good food. This was followed on Saturday by a further shopping expedition with Stephen in his search for the elusive hooded black t-shirt. Again, there were none to be had at Girasole but he did manage to console himself with a couple of pairs of trousers and two t-shirts that would take him down a different sartorial route.

As a reward for my patience, we then went to Porto San Giorgio to hunt out a café and patisserie called La Petite, recommended to us by my erstwhile student, Alessandro. As the name suggests, both it and its contents are small but perfectly formed and it will definitely feature highly when I get round to constructing my guide to the best places for hot chocolate in Le Marche. And when you come to think about it, when there are such delights in the world as sunken chocolate torta, crunchy on the outside and chewily gooey on the inside, who really needs lettuce?